Despicable
by wndrw8
Summary: If you were locked up in a ship with a bunch of people you despise, would you do bad things, too? warning: super creepy
1. Chapter 1

What if the crew didn't sleep through the first two years? I'm asking for a lot of leeway with the characters, plot, and technology in this one. This is an experimental fic. If that offends you, please turn away now.

Creep factor: HIGH

* * *

Charlie is a deviant.

He has been from the moment she met him all those years ago. He smokes, he drinks, he shoots up. He cheated on her once but she forgave him. Because for someone who lost a father and never had a mother, letting people go is awfully hard.

Elizabeth considers herself a strong person, but she hates her weakness for him.

"How the fuck did you think this was going to be a good idea?" Saliva coats his lips, his chin a messy five o'clock shadow. His holds a glass coated in perspiration in one hand and leans against the wall with the other. "I mean, two years? There's only seven of us. What'd you think was going to happen?"

"There's eight—"

"Don't count _him_."

There is a fleck of blood on Charlie's shirt from the fight he had with Janek earlier and Elizabeth finds herself staring at it. If I stare long enough at it, she tells herself, it will cease to exist. Just like this crew and this ship and this spitting, swinging man in front of me.

It has been eight months and three weeks already.

* * *

Elizabeth started retreating into the crawlspace and tunnels in the underbelly of the ship about three months ago, and now she goes just about every day. She wears headphones and listens to Elvis Presley croon about hound dogs and people being cruel to one another. She finds it fitting.

In the middle of the night she's examining a power cufflink when she suddenly feels a hand gripping her shoulder. It is a strong hand, a cool hand, and she jumps. The power cufflink falls to the floor and her headphones go with it.

"I am very sorry, Doctor Shaw."

"David…" she exhales, pushes her hair out of her face. "You scared me."

"Fright was not my intention. May I join you?"

In the months since she's been coming here, David always follows her. She allows him. There is something sweet about him and the way he trails after her like a bumbling puppy.

Elizabeth leans back against the cool steel of the crawlspace. She now considers him a friend.

"Of course," she says. "Something on your mind?"

He hesitates, his blue eyes flickering to the panel in front of him, the tangled wires, the blinking lights. "I do not understand humans. Everyone aboard the Prometheus is anxious. It seems as if… they volunteered for this mission but do not want to be here. It is very frustrating to watch."

Her music is still audible through the headphones.

_You make me so lonely baby,  
I get so lonely,  
I get so lonely I could die._

It echoes throughout the confined space.

There is a small water bottle in the corner and she nods to it. "Is that for me?"

He smiles. Their hands touch as he places it in her grasp and he holds contact there for several seconds. "I am trying to make myself useful."

"David…" she laughs. "It is not always about making oneself useful. Sometimes you have to just… be."

David shakes his head and a small piece of blonde hair runs errant. She smoothes it out, tucking it back into place behind his ear. "Just being," David muses. "I do not think that is in my programming."

* * *

They spend a month meeting almost every night in the crawlspace while the rest of the crew is either sleeping, masturbating, or fucking. Elizabeth has a strange feeling that Vickers and Charlie have slept together, but she doesn't want to think of it. They are a family, she thinks. They mustn't turn on one another. At least not until the mission is completed.

This night, she decides to play her music through the comm system so David can hear it.

His ears perk forward, like a dog's, and his eyes twinkle as the twanging guitar picks up. Finally a smile emerges and she is suddenly so thankful for this man, this machine that has allowed her to breathe in the stifling confines of the Prometheus. She touches his hand. "You like it?"

"Yes. It is very… acoustically pleasing."

_Acoustically pleasing._ "You have a funny way of saying things, David."

"On the contrary, I say things exactly how they are. It is you humans who distort the meaning."

Elizabeth is taken, for a moment, by the sound of disdain that inflects his voice. But only for a moment. Then he is smiling at her and she tilts back the water bottle he's brought, relishing how it quenches her dry throat. She changes the song and is about to go back to working through the power cufflinks when she feels a sudden wave of nausea.

She stills. Her hand reaches out to the floor, steadying herself even though she is already seated.

"Doctor Shaw?"

She closes her eyes and the entire room seems to spin, like she is a thousand miles high and on the edge of a precipice. She sways, falls back but David is already there. He catches her, positioning her so she's resting against him between his legs, her back to his chest.

"Another attack? That's three this week."

She's never been prone to vertigo, but she's not entirely sure this is vertigo.

Elizabeth rests, feeling the rise and fall of David's chest beneath her, the sweet sound of Elvis's crooning voice around her.

David's right hand smoothes across her stomach and with his other he cups her chin and turns her head so they are looking at one another. She stares up into the flecked blue irises, the creases that line his face and the thin, pale lips. She feels him analyzing her, memorizing her, but is too faint to think more of it.

* * *

Charlie grows more sullen with each passing month. She doesn't see much of him; most of his time is spent playing pool and drinking with either Fifield or Millburn and when he comes back to their quarters at the end of the day, he always smells somehow of lavender.

Vickers smells of lavender, too.

But Elizabeth prefers not to think of this.

Sometimes right before she falls asleep, she can feel David inside of her head. She can see him smiling at her, can feel him hugging her and telling her that everything will be alright. They will soon land at the planet and everything will improve.

It has been thirteen months and they still have eleven more to go.

"I do not wish to emulate humans," David is saying. He is sitting next to her in the crawlspace, and they are looking out of a small porthole into space. "Their emotions place them in considerable danger."

"Then why do you study them so much?"

"They are intriguing, albeit highly inefficient."

Elizabeth smiles. "David, you _do_ know that I am human, right?"

David lifts a teacup to his lips. It is synthetic tea, designed to look and smell real so Elizabeth can feel she is not sitting in the hull of a spaceship drinking tea by herself. He swallows and she watches his Adam's apple bob up and down. "Yes, but you are different."

"How so?"

"You mean well. You store your negative emotions inside, in order to better function with others."

"That's not always a good thing."

He turns and looks her straight in the eye. "Is it not?"

"Sometimes all those emotions can bottle up until they explode."

David looks at her. His eyes scan the length of her body, rest on her chest, and then flicker back to her face. She believes that all androids must do this. Studying what is different from them. She sighs and brings the steaming tea to her lips.

It burns her tongue. "I think Charlie is cheating on me."

A star shoots across the window in front of them before flickering out. David sets his tea on the ground. His hand then finds hers, uncharacteristically warm from the drink. "It… hurts you?"

"I can't be sure. I mean… I think, but does one ever really—"

"He is. I caught the two of them in Vicker's briefing room."

Elizabeth stiffens. For the first time since she met David, she feels a strong negative emotion emulating from his body. His gaze is firm, dark.

She sets down the teacup and leans forward with her head in her hands, feeling the sudden headache throbbing in her temples as they speed along in the emptiness. She exhales, but doesn't cry. Then his hand is on her back, rubbing calm circles. "There, there," David hums. "A two year journey of this nature is hard on everyone."


	2. Chapter 2

WARNING: Rape triggers. Read with caution.

* * *

She takes her things from the quarters she shared with Charlie and moves to an unused room a few floors below.

There is so much space.

Elizabeth is bothered by the space because from all their years together she has grown accustomed to a lack of space. He was always there, his things were always there and that was a comfort because at least she wasn't alone.

Now she looks at the empty room in front of her and it aches at her chest. You are alone now, she thinks. It's okay to cry. But she can't and instead she just curls up in a ball on the bed, her heart pounding out of her chest and she's so angry she sweats and her nails pinch blood from her palms.

Several minutes in, David manually opens the door to her new quarters.

He stands there and the light falls in around him, illuminating the dark spaces inside. He stares at her and then closes and locks the door behind him, walks slowly over to the bed and lies down next to her so they are eye to eye. Their lips are inches away from each other.

"I can't keep my negative emotions inside anymore," she whispers. "Do you find me despicable?"

He touches her cheek, kisses her knuckles. "No. Not at all. There is something about you that makes it seem perfect."

"Do you wish he were dead?" David asks the next night. She is elbow deep in grease, trying to rearrange an overheated circuit from the panel by her bed. She sips on a glass of wine as she works and her fingerprints leave black smudge marks along the rim. Nat King Cole croons from the speakers.

"No," Elizabeth says slowly. She is growing used to his strange questioning. Societal norms and sensitivity are not things he has learned yet. "I just wish it were different between us."

"Will you go back to him?"

"Mmm… most likely. When we return home. That's the way it's been for years."

She takes another sip, feels the alcohol swimming in her veins. Her hair has grown out since they started the journey. It is now an inch below her shoulders and she's begun letting it fall in loose curls. She dyed it back to black, her original color, because it felt more natural.

Charlie cornered her in the corridor after she did it. His face was flushed under the lights, coated in sweat. She wondered briefly if he was using again. "I don't like it."

"I didn't do it for you."

He smirked, his hand tracing her jaw line, the outline of her breast. "Can't you see? God, you're so naïve. You always have been."

"See what?"

"Something's wrong with David. Everyone can feel it. He's up to something."

"Everyone can feel it or just you?"

Charlie couldn't respond.

Now, with David sitting on the bed watching her work, Elizabeth can't help but feel a twinge of irritation. He doesn't want you to be happy, she thinks. Simple. Don't obsess about it.

The wine glass is empty so David refills it for her. Already she's feeling a little buzzed and as she finishes work on the circuit and washes her hands she begins to really think about things. It's been days since she's seen Fifield. The same for Millburn and Ford. She guesses Janek is smoking pot on the bridge and Vickers… probably getting her brains fucked out by Charlie.

Screw them. Screw them all.

She turns suddenly and David is standing so close that she bumps into him, spilling some of the wine out onto the tiles below. The room seems awfully fuzzy and for a second she's not sure if she's still turning or not. How funny. She teeters, reaches out but David's hand is already on her.

"I'm reading an increase in your heart rate, Elizabeth."

She licks her lips. The glass slips from her hands. "How did you know where I had moved?" she asks. "You came so suddenly. It was like you knew… you knew I needed you."

The wine seeps in between her toes. She leans forward into David's chest and his arms surround her. "The alcohol," he says, this time he is almost whispering, "and you've been sick."

"I…"

He holds her tight and his fingers press into her spine.

* * *

She dreams, or maybe she is awake, she can't tell because everything is coated in a dim fog and she's not in complete control of her limbs. She sees David hovering above her. He takes off her clothes and wipes her down with a cold cloth, pressing his lips to her forehead.

She fades in and out several more times until suddenly the fog lifts and she's able to see without everything being thickened by a fine haze. The first thing she notices is how dark the room is. There are candles flickering on the table, the smell of vanilla and rosewater strong as she forces herself into sitting position.

David sits next to her; he takes her hand in his own and presses it to his lips. "Where's Ford? I think I should see a doctor."

"I've tended to you."

The light flickers behind them and Elizabeth feels a strange buzzing at the base of her skill. Where are the others, a voice inside her asks. You have to find them. But as soon as she thinks it, David speaks for her.

"It was necessary," he says, slowly. "They had to be sedated. For the safety of the mission, of course."

"What?"

"Don't worry. It's like they are sleeping."

The entire crew?

Elizabeth's mouth runs dry. The back of her neck pinches and her palm slaps at it but the feeling remains. She touches it more carefully, digging around with the edges of her fingertips. Round, hard, just beneath the skin. An implant. That's how he knew where she was, that's how he monitored her. That's how he's monitoring her _right now_. Elizabeth feels a wave of nausea wash over her.

"I did it for good reason," David says. He is so eerily calm. "Believe me. It'll be better this way—just you and I."

* * *

She asks him nicely to take her to the medical bay and he obliges.

It has been fourteen months now.

The corridors are stagnant. Full of stale air, thick air. She wonders why she didn't notice before and wonders what all was in that water he gave her. There was a day when she passed out completely in the crawl space. That must've been when he inserted the implant.

"You are so clever, Elizabeth," David says from beside her. "That's why I like you so much."

Like me so much? This is not affection, she thinks. This is something sick and twisted.

David's body suddenly stops. His cool blue eyes turn on her, once over her body like she is so used to but this time it is much worse, because she knows he is not just looking over her; he's looking inside her. David tilts his head slightly. "Only humans can be twisted. I am logical. And you will soon understand it."

The entire crew has been placed in sealed medical pods in the medical bay. Their eyes are closed, sleeping, and as she goes from pod to pod Elizabeth's throat closes up. Everything, the whole thing… Charlie's there and she thinks she won't be able to take it but she can.

"I put them to sleep," David tells her. "They will survive just fine. I believe…"

"You believe?"

"This has never been done before. But I do think it is a better way to keep them."

_A better way to keep them._

She is scared, anxious. But there is this small voice in the mind of her mind that lingers… The work will be easier now, faster. No one will argue. No one will argue and thank God because she almost couldn't take it anymore.

The thoughts inundate her; shake her to her core.

"I knew you would see," he says. "We are so much alike."

* * *

Her body moves of its own free will but there is something in the implant that can take over her at moments. At first when she sits down in the mess hall for a small dinner she doesn't want to eat. But then her hand is moving forward of its own accord, grasping the spoon on the table and delving into the bowl in front of her. Her body trembles. She doesn't want to open her mouth but it does anyway.

Her tears mix with the food.

The stew is a perfect temperature. Juicy pieces of beef and noodles, vegetables, and spices. Made to perfection by the only thing that's more perfect than it.

She finishes eating and wipes her mouth on the napkin David has placed next to her. Then he gives her a small scoop of peppermint ice cream and God, she is so overwhelmed that the last thing she wants to do is eat, but she can't stop herself. Her hand goes to the spoon again and then she's breathing mint, cool pieces like ice.

How could she have been so blind?

Her fear of being alone has undone her for the final time.

_Stand up_, David says, but not out loud. She complies instead of being forced, and finds his hands tangling in her hair. Her feet are bare on the cool metal floor and all she has draped over her body is a thin cotton dress.

"I gave you a nutrient IV while you were recovering. You needed to gain some weight."

It's true. Elizabeth feels her hips a little more prominent, her breasts, her thighs. Not by much, but enough. He has made her into the Elizabeth Shaw he wants.

Now what?

David smiles and her blood runs ice cold.

* * *

Her body trembles uncontrollably, like shivering but worse. Her teeth grind together to keep from chattering.

Imprisoned in her own body.

She still can't believe it. The tears have dried on her cheeks, red and raw, and she feels the implant in her neck throbbing.

_It will be okay_, David reassures her. But she is not reassured. They are heading back to her quarters now and the fear is building. Why the bedroom? Why like this? I was your friend, she wants to say. I liked you, I would've been there for you.

David hears but stays silent. His eyes have gone a shade dark, his skin grey under the low light.

She feels forced down onto the bed. Like his hands are on her, but they're not. Her muscles tense. She tries to fight it, but the pressure is so strong a joint in her shoulder pops when she tries to stand back up. Her knees knock together and she would cry, but her eyes are so tired she can barely blink. Why here? She tries to think loud. _Answer me_!

His back is to her as he takes something out of the drawer to her left. Nimble fingers, she can't see what he has and it terrifies her.

She swallows.

In her mind, she sees him lowering his zipper. She sees him forcing her to take him in her mouth, her hands pressed against either side, thrusting until she chokes. Elizabeth's heart races. Sweat coats her brow and she tries to slow her breathing.

_Don't do this_.

The cross swings between her breasts, and maybe it's no use to pray. Maybe God has forgotten her out here in space, maybe forgotten about all of them.

Slowly David turns. He cups the back of her neck and she closes her eyes, tenses her mouth shut tight but he's not forcing himself on her, he's wiping the tears from her cheeks. Then he's massaging the muscles in her neck, placing ice on it to help stop the throbbing.

She opens her eyes and he is glaring at her. His mouth is pinched.

_I could never do that to you._

But how could she have known? How could she trust him when this is what he's done? Elizabeth feels his hands branching out to her shoulders, working loose the tension. Is this how things will be from now on? The emotion rests on her chest, heavier than she ever thought possible, and she lies back against the covers to rest.

Her eyes flutter shut, heavy with the orders of the implant in her neck, and she falls into restless dreams. She imagines cutting the implant out. She imagines Charlie dead in the pod, all of them dead and it's all her fault.

Will they survive?

They have to or none of this was worth it.


	3. Chapter 3

When sleep leaves her, David is absent. The room flickers in candlelight, smelling faintly sweet. She heaves herself to her feet and stumbles to the bathroom. The implant, she thinks. Cut it out. No matter what the consequences, she has to get it out.

There is glass in the bathroom and she breaks it, presses a shard of it against her neck. The edge pierces her flesh easily. She can't see what she's doing and her fingers fumble with the blood, the tissue and the slippery metal of the implant as it falls through her hand and lands on the tile floor with a small clink. Her neck is burning. She rinses it off in the shower and takes a regenerator to it, feeling the clear medical glue smearing on her skin.

Her body is soaking wet. The cotton dress clings to her skin, dotted with small droplets of blood.

How did they get this far? Sometimes the entire ship seems so alien to her that she can't even believe she is really here. And where is David?

The crew, she thinks.

There must be a problem with the medical pods. Otherwise he wouldn't have left her.

What if they're dead like she dreamed? She closes her eyes and imagines him shaking, hovering alone in the darkness of her unconscious. His thin lips are twisted into a frown.

"It was an accident," he says. "I thought I knew how… I thought it would be for the best…"

Yes, they both thought they were doing what was best.

But they were wrong.

* * *

She stumbles into the medical bay just as David is shocking Charlie to life. The current shoots his body straight up, rigid, his eyes red rimmed as his mouth opens and he gasps.

"Charlie!"

Blue veins expand beneath his pale skin. Glassy eyed, he lurches forward on the table like he's choking, spitting. His eyes roll back in his head. Convulsing now, David injects him with something that causes his body to fall limp.

Charlie falls still inside the medical pod, his limbs twisted awkwardly around themselves. Just like the others.

"David, what are you doing!"

Her hands clench around the rubber like material of his suit. Straining, she yanks him away from Charlie's pod and then her knuckles are connecting with his cheek. Not thinking, just doing. It has been a very long time since Elizabeth has allowed herself to act before thinking.

She hits David once, twice, kicks him in the shins but nothing can hurt him. Instead he just stands there, watching her efforts with a small frown on his face. His cool palms cover her wrist as she struggles and he holds her still without exertion.

"I am sorry," he whispers. "The pods malfunctioned."

Elizabeth knees him in the stomach and only then does he flinch. A weak spot, an Achilles tendon in a perfect specimen, and she's found it. Slowly his face morphs with the realization, but it's too late. She knees him again, knees him a third time, and one of his hands frees itself to hit her back. The dense metal in his bones slices open the skin on her cheek and she smells, tastes blood. It splatters across David's suit.

"Elizabeth…"

"You meant to do this."

"I thought they would sleep. I thought it would be reasonable."

"You're not reasonable, David, you're _sick_."

He squints. His eyes flicker back and forth like he is trying to read her and slowly his grip around her wrists loosens. Elizabeth's eyes blur as they skim over the bodies in the medical pods, mouths open with pale, almost translucent skin. Dead.

She knees him one more time in the stomach and he doubles over.

"Malfunctioned," he says, strangely, and falls to his knees.

His hands free of her, she runs.

* * *

The corridors bounce in her vision, heavy with shadows and her breathing echoes in her head. Flashes of light from power cufflinks stab at her. Her eyes are itching. She is tired and can feel some of the blood from her neck that's dried on her skin. It crumbles and peels as she runs.

_You store your negative emotions inside, in order to better function with others._

In order to better function with who? It didn't change things between her and Charlie. She has to stop ignoring things and deal with them.

There is a pain in her chest and she stops, leaning against the side of the corridor to steady herself. The entrance to the crawlspace is in front of her. Maybe there is something inside there that she can use to deactivate David with?

No.

She needs him to help her fly the ship.

But fly it where? She can't go back to Earth. Six people are dead and their blood is on her hands. There is no where to go but forward. No one will ever understand what it was like here—how hollow and silent the ship was and how it changed them.

* * *

Fear consumes her as she opens the door; it eats at her as she crawls through the tunnels in the underbelly of the ship and into the darkness.

_When at last my dreams come true  
Darling this I know  
Happiness will follow you  
Everywhere you go_

She's been crawling for hours trying to figure out what to do. David started playing Elvis songs through the comm system and it feels to her like he's trying to apologize but she doesn't care. Her knees are bloody and scraped, her neck tense. Her hands are red and blistered but she can't stop moving. Not until she knows what to do.

There is no way she can pilot this ship by herself.

Elizabeth slows. There is a porthole a few feet down the tunnel and she drags herself over to it. Staring out into the blackness, she feels an overwhelming sense of despair. It's despicable, really. It was her mission, her obsession all along and she never should've pulled the others into it.

Her breath rasps in her chest.

"Elizabeth…"

David? She hears him rounding the corner, his polymer skin squishing against the floor. How things have changed, she thinks. A week ago he was holding her in his arms and she felt nothing wrong with it.

"You are bleeding."

His breath hits the back of her neck. "I'll be fine."

"No, you won't."

"You've ruined everything."

"I thought it was the right thing. I thought you shared my disdain for their bickering."

"David…"

She can't believe they're sitting here talking when he killed them. He killed her crew and now her dream is ruined. She won't be able to work when she returns to Earth. They will say she was conspiring with him and that is why she lived. There won't be anyone…

She turns so they are facing and his fingers encircle her wrist.

"You are the only friend I've ever had, Elizabeth. Will you turn me in?"

_Well, fair exchange bears no robbery,  
And the whole world will know that it's true.  
Understanding solves all problems, baby,  
That's why I'm telling you_

_If you want to be loved,  
Baby, you've got to love me, too._

There is no other choice. They have ten more months to go, twenty seven more after that.

"Who would I turn you in to? We are so far from home."

"Yes," his face loses its tension. "So far from home…"


	4. Chapter 4

Lately she is having trouble breathing. Not because she's sick or there is a lack of oxygen, but because the realization of what's happened is sometimes unbearable. Out in space, surrounded by darkness, she struggles with the possibility that she will find her creators but never go back to Earth. She will complete her mission, but she will never share her findings.

Elizabeth lies in the darkness of her quarters, watching a hologram of the Milky Way as it is projected over her bed. She inserts one finger into the clear mist, swirling her fingertip around the image of Earth.

_The stars would tumble down beside me,  
The moon would hang its head and cry.  
My arms would never hold another baby doll  
If we should ever say good-bye_.

"We will reach our destination in three months, five days, six hours, and twenty eight minutes," David says.

Elizabeth rolls on her side so she is facing him. Six weeks living in a ship with six dead bodies and she is starting to feel the weight. She feels it in the pressure on her temples, the curling sickness in the pit of her stomach. She wishes David would stay away from her; she wishes he would never leave her side. "It doesn't matter, David."

"It doesn't? Why not?"

"I can't go back to Earth."

"Because of the crew? Elizabeth, that is my fault. I simply thought…"

Sometimes she wonders if the others are actually dead; if they're not dead she wonders what they're doing. Perhaps hiding, lingering here somewhere on the ship. Perhaps Janek is still lighting up in the bridge and that's why it smells perpetually of weed.

Elizabeth has seen Vickers standing in the corridors, her head down staring at a gaping hole in her stomach while the blood rushes out. Vickers's eyes are white and rolled back, and sometimes she appears next to the bed at night during rest time. Rest, not sleep. Elizabeth does not sleep anymore. She can't.

"David, I feel like they're still here."

"That is impossible."

"But what if it isn't?"

David rolls onto his side so they are staring at one another and his eyes twinkle under the projection. "I am planning a course back to Earth after we explore the planet."

"You can't—"

"There is too much to be gained. I cannot let you be lost to my mistake." He tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear, cups her chin in the palm of his hand. "I will explain. I will make it right."

"David—"

"You have to know that death was not my intention…"

Elizabeth licks her lips. Her gaze flickers up to his and for a moment she is struck by how much his eyes remind her of Charlie's. She stills. Green irises flecked with hazel grids. It can't be. She's been looking at David this close for over a year now. How could they have suddenly changed?

Then he blinks and the green eyes change back to blue. Perhaps a small malfunction…

"In time I will forgive you," she says. "But them…"

"What do you mean, them? _They_ are gone."

She sighs. Her chest rasps like she has pneumonia. If there is one thing she has learned from this journey it's that the dead can never leave you, especially out here in space, so close to God and where you came from.

* * *

Another two months pass and she starts watching things—stars, grease stains, scrapes that pop up when she is rummaging through the crawlspace.

Vickers visits her when she lays down in bed. The smell of lavender seems to linger on the sheets and on her clothes.

Once afraid of David, now she fears them.

* * *

Watching things; she watches him.

David has always had a funny way of walking. She noticed it from the moment she first met him—back ramrod straight, butt clenched, legs bending and straightening in a way that seemed most unnatural to her. But lately he's started walking differently. Instead of a perfect posture, he's garnered a stooped over sort of swag. His feet no longer move in even strides, but in lazy, meandering stagger steps. Like he's a man who's comfortable with himself. Cocky.

Kind of like Charlie.

"We need to get rid of the bodies," Elizabeth says. There are ten days left until they arrive at their destination. "I feel wrong still having them here."

"But why?"

David's eyes have gone green again. He's smiling, too. Not like normal but in a lopsided sort of half grin. Like Charlie. For a moment Elizabeth is so panicked for a moment that she can't even breathe. "Your eyes are different," she whispers.

"No," the grin widens. "These are my eyes, babe. Always have been."

Elizabeth recoils. The tool in her hand drops and she stumbles awkwardly out of the room.

* * *

They pass another week without incident before Elizabeth starts to feel it again. She is lying down in the cockpit on the bridge when she hears a harmonica playing in the background. I must be crazy, she immediately thinks. There is no music here.

But it continues—low and sweet like someone is whispering an Elvis Christmas song in her ear. She realizes then that it's late December and a Christmas song would be fitting except for her and Charlie's anniversary was also around this time. She stands, goes to the main console and checks the date. 12/20/2093. How long has it been since that very first night? Seven… eight years?

She stiffens.

The smell of Old Spice and whiskey suddenly hits her. Strong. Just a hint of sweetness, of meth. Charlie? She goes to turn but a body is already surrounding her, strong arms resting over her own—his chest to her back with nowhere to run.

It's impossible.

She turns her head but instead of brown hair and a rugged five o'clock shadow, she is met with bleached blonde locks, a face meticulously void of stubble. Thin lips, strong nose but those eyes—the eyes are Charlie's even though it's not Charlie. It's David.

She tenses. "What the hell are you doing?"

He nuzzles her neck with his nose, lips biting at her flesh. Old habit. Like he's done it a thousand times. "I'm celebrating, Ellie."

Her body tenses. The smell overpowers her as he forces her arms to her sides, lowering the neckline of her shirt until her breasts are exposed and he's twirling a nipple between his fingers. Elizabeth jerks; she shivers and swears she can feel his heart beating against her.

How could he know it's their anniversary? She never mentioned it before except to Charlie and only when…

She twists and frees her hand. It flies up, stilling his wrist. "You watched us, didn't you?"

Green eyes flicker back to blue. David looks down and immediately withdraws his hand. His eyes linger at her chest for a moment before he's helping her pull up the neckline so she's covered. He looks… embarrassed.

It is impossible.

"Elizabeth, how did I—"

"You watched us," she says again. "Charlie and I in bed, you watched us."

"I was concerned he'd hurt you. You said he was rather volatile—"

"You were concerned? Or curious?"

His hands fall to his side, shoulders back. "Perhaps a bit of both."

"Oh God. Jesus-"

"Elizabeth, I am not sure what I... I was in the storage bay and then I was here. Perhaps I have malfunctioned. I'm terribly—"

She shoves him then, harder than she imagined she was able to and he looks so confused. What is wrong with you, she wants to scream. This horrible, sickening feeling boils in her stomach. Is he faking? Is he pretending? Why didn't he just kill her with the rest of them? She'd rather be dead than cooped up here where she can't trust anyone and she craves, she aches for _someone_.

She turns her back on him and walks over to the main computer console. Her eyes close. She grips the railing, feeling the heat and buzz of electricity running beneath her skin. Perhaps they blame her and that is why they stayed.

"We don't blame you."

The voice is coming from David but it is not his voice. It is not his voice and not his eyes anymore, either.

Elizabeth feels her body shaking uncontrollably. He's playing me, she thinks. But then the smell is back and his eyes… they pull on her.

"I think of you, too, Ellie."

His arms surround her again, the smell intoxicating as she struggles to keep hold of the console. It can't be, she thinks. But could it? His chest to her back again, her neck tilts so it rests on his shoulder. The smell is strong now and she knows she must be losing it but she wants to believe so badly...

"Relax, babe. It's me."

But it's not him.

David will never be Charlie and she has to stop pretending.

Her body tenses. "David, let go of me."

"Ellie—"

"I said LET GO."

His body tenses enough to match hers. Humming, she feels the current transfer from her to him. It sparks between their skin, but he doesn't let go. He keeps her close, tormenting, like Charlie loved to so much.

His hands close around her wrists; his knee spreads her legs. She struggles but he holds her close. Is this it? Is this what the rest of her life looks like?

Elizabeth winces, tries to conjure some emotion but there is nothing left. "You can't keep me here forever," she whispers.

David laughs. "We'll see about that."

* * *

They reach the planet and her thighs are permanently bruised, sticky with her own sweat and blood. David lands the Prometheus in a howling dust storm. They wait a day before Elizabeth suits up, but something stops her in the airlock.

What's the point of this anymore? What could she possible gain from going out there? She already found her answers right here on the ship.

Elizabeth feels like she is slowly rotting from the inside out.

"Ellie, baby," David says through the comm system after the dust has cleared. His voice is low. "Why the hesitation? Isn't this your dream?"

Her dream was not this planet. It was not this ship or space or the tall mountains that border orange rivers and dead grass. Her dream was answers. Her dream was to find her creators and now, after everything that's happened, she is not sure how godlike they will be. Maybe they are human, too? Broken, bruised, lashing out constantly and hurting others. Maybe they don't care.

Elizabeth thinks, staring at the mountains and the grey mist that settles over the land, that she is not sure if she even wants to find them at all anymore.

END


End file.
